What About All The Plans?

The ANC’s half-hearted economic policies fail to make an impact.

- Andile Ntingi

The ruling ANC has an illustrious career in producing policy proposals that never see the light of day. Occasionally, some proposals are implemented half-heartedly, resulting in no meaningful impact being achieved by them.

I was reminded of the ANC’s lacklustre track record in implementing its policies when the political party released a 51-page policy document on 10 July, which spelled out proposals aimed at kickstarting the Covid-19-battered South African economy.

Interestingly, the document has a page dedicated to proposed measures that could be undertaken to boost production and investment in the ailing mining sector.

However, the page does not mention anything about the African Exploration Mining and Finance Corporation (AEMFC), the state-owned mining company established in 2011 with the intention to develop strategic minerals with private investors in order to supply them as feedstock to local manufacturers at competitive or discounted prices.

This intervention was necessary to drive the beneficiation of SA’s raw materials to help the country make headway in industrial export markets.

In February 2012, the ANC released a research report that recommended that the state-owned mining company (SMC) be used as the main vehicle for increasing government participation in mining, whereby the SMC would hold exploration rights to minerals by having the first sight of all new state-financed geo-data.